Heroin overdoses on the rise

Thursday

Aug 14, 2014 at 4:53 PMAug 14, 2014 at 5:13 PM

The Dennis Police Department recorded four heroin overdoses, three of which were fatal, from July 16 to Aug. 1. While drug overdose deaths are still shocking, they are not rare in the mid-Cape or elsewhere around Massachusetts and the nation.

Caitlin Russell

The Dennis Police Department recorded four heroin overdoses, three of which were fatal, from July 16 to Aug. 1. While drug overdose deaths are still shocking, they are not rare in the mid-Cape or elsewhere around Massachusetts and the nation.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Massachusetts has seen a 90 percent increase in unintentional overdoses from 2000 to 2012. In 2000, there were 5.3 deaths per 100,000 people in Massachusetts by overdose. By 2012, that number stood at 10.1 deaths per 100,000 residents.

Statistics have been compiled for only the first six months of 2013, but the DPH has recorded 337 in that time compared to a total of 668 in 2012, and 338 in 2000.

Dennis police say that just a couple of years ago prescription painkillers were everywhere, but these days heroin is more common.

Painkillers used to travel from so-called “pain clinics” in Florida up the eastern seaboard to Cape Cod, but despite that pipeline having been partially shut down, opiate addiction has not abated.

“We deal mostly with heroin at this point,” said Dennis Police Detective Tom Downs. “People can’t get the pills anymore so they go to heroin.”

Pills may seem safer, but that no longer matters. As opiate addiction has become more prevalent in the region, the desire to keep it “safe” by using pills from a pharmaceutical company as opposed to supposedly more dangerous drugs supplied by a drug dealer has fallen by the wayside to some extent.

Heroin can be snorted, allowing addicts to eschew the use of needles, but police say they get reports all the time of people shooting up in public places.

“We probably get a call a day about somebody shooting up,” in a public place, said Downs. “It’s pretty brazen.”

Officer Ryan Carr says he was walking through a parking lot one day and saw a young person doing it openly in his car in broad daylight. He knocked on the window and was met with a dead-eyed stare.

“Sometimes making an arrest is the best way to get them into treatment,” said Carr.

Carr said that since he was a rookie, his view on drug addicts has changed considerably. He used to see them as being like any other criminal. Now he sees them as a person in need of help.

Safe Harbor and Narcan

“We probably get two to three overdoses a week,” said Downs. He noted that the Safe Harbor Rule, which allows people to call 911 without fear of being arrested for drug possession, has helped save lives. He also credits Narcan, a nasal spray that brings people who have overdosed back from death’s door, with limiting the number of fatal overdoses.

Yarmouth Deputy Police Chief Steven Xiarhos said that Narcan is available at the police station for anyone who needs it, and that the day after the department responds to an overdose, they return to the home and ask the family if they want their addicted family member committed to treatment involuntarily.

“In a one-year period we’ve used Narcan 39 times,” said Xiarhos. “If it wasn’t for Narcan how many would have died?” And that’s just the ones who call the fire department,” he said, noting that people with their own Narcan are less likely to call 911. “Because there’s so much Narcan, there are less deaths.”

“It’s definitely more than we know,” Carr said in regard to overdoses. He said the availability of Narcan has helped save lives, but has also made it tough to track overdoses.

“The ones I get upset with are the people who aren’t using who are getting people addicted,” Carr said in reference to the drug dealers who profit from peoples’ addiction.

He noted that reaching out to the community has helped the police become more aware of areas that could be a problem, or that have frequent drug traffic.

“People feel like they can approach us so they give us information,” he said. “It’s been a good partnership between us and the community.”

“If we get information about a drug house, we’ll investigate,” said Dennis officer Nick Patsavos. He noted, however, that as soon as one dealer is arrested another pops up to satisfy the demand for heroin. “It’s like whack a mole,” he said.

Xiarhos said that while strict enforcement is important, helping people is a primary goal of the department.

“We’re in the business of saving lives. The naysayer would say ‘all you’re doing is giving them a chance to use again,” said Xiarhos. “You’re giving that person a chance to get help.”

He acknowledged that many people see addiction not as a disease but as a social ill that people choose to indulge in. He doesn’t find that type of mentality productive.

“There’s less sympathy. We need to change that … they’re doing something illegal, don’t get me wrong. You have to see the big picture.”

That big picture includes family members devastated by their loved one’s addiction, kids growing up without a mother or father, parents mourning the deaths of their children and alienation from family because they’ve been lied to and stolen from. It also includes communities that see spikes in drug-related crimes; addicts stealing to support their addictions.

“The heroin use comes back to B&Es … 95 percent of our crime is drug-related,” said Downs. He also expressed sympathy for addicts, noting that what may have started out as an addiction to legal painkillers or a bad decision, becomes an all-consuming compulsion before the person knows what hit him.

“He didn’t choose to wake up and shoot himself full of heroin,” said Downs. “It’s a serious problem here. We try to battle it as much as we can.”